Bill Redpath, elected national chair of the Libertarian Party in Portland, Oregon on July 2, is on the Board of the Center for Voting and Democracy (www.fairvote.org), which advocates proportional representation for legislative bodies, and instant-runoff voting for elections with a single person to be elected (such as president). At the debate (held the day before the vote), Redpath clearly emphasized his belief that this type of election change is needed, in order for the Libertarian Party to become truly influential. One of Redpath’s opponents attacked alternative voting systems. However, Redpath won a 3-person race with 64% of the vote.
The convention also vastly shortened the party’s national platform. For a very detailed and very objective report on the convention, see http://thirdpartywatch.com.
Congratulations to Bill Redpath!
My hope is that Bill’s election as Chairman will help more Libertarians become conversant in the arguments for electoral reform.
This web site is a great resource for that, as is FairVote.org.
I am also pleased to learn from communicating with both of them directly that incoming Libertarian National Committee Vice Chair Chuck Moulton and Libertarian National Committee regional representative M Carling are familiar with multi-party-friendly electoral reforms.
My sense is that the other at-large representatives need to be educated on electoral reform, but I didn’t run into any one who was against making elections more competitive and representative.
I think a good way to educate Libertarians about electoral reform is to use Ranked-Choice Voting or Approval Voting to elect the single member offices (Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer, etc.) — and that would have saved delegates a lot of time at this convention — and use some form of proportional representation to elect the rest of the national committee.
I’d prefer a completely proportional election of LNCExComm reps — as I believe regional preferences shouldn’t be elevated above other preferences. But a mixed-member district (MMD) system would be acceptable to me, and guarantee some regional representation, but also reflect the diversity within the Libertarian Party.
And a mail-in ballot for party officers — even if advisory — would help educate and involve even more Libertarians.
The delegates at the Portland convention dumped a few dozen party platform planks, including the Election Laws platform (see language below).
Although I helped draft the Election Laws platform, I voted not to retain it (along with every other plank) for the purpose of streamlining the entire platform.
I’m open to the possibility that in the Information Age party platforms may be outdated 20th century election technology, and that candidates have a better sense of what issues should be highlighted in that candidate’s particular race, and more resources to get that candidate’s message out.
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Election Laws
The Issue: Electoral systems matter. Many state legislatures have established gerrymandered districts and prohibitively restrictive laws that effectively exclude alternative candidates and parties from their rightful places on election ballots. Such laws wrongfully deny ballot access to political candidates and groups, and further deny the voters their right to consider all legitimate alternatives. Various laws enable the federal and state governments to control the elections of their own administrators and beneficiaries, thereby further reducing accountability to citizens.
The Principle: Elections at all levels should be in the control of those who wish to participate in or support them voluntarily. As private voluntary groups, political parties should be allowed to establish their own rules for nomination procedures, primaries and conventions. No state has an interest to protect in this area except for the fair and efficient conduct of elections.
Solutions: We propose electoral systems that are more representative of the electorate at the federal, state and local levels. There should be no state or federal restriction of ballot access. Voters may submit their own choices including the option of using “tickets” or cards printed by candidates or political parties.
Transitional Action: End government control of political parties, consistent with First Amendment rights to freedom of association and freedom of expression. We urge repeal of the Federal Election Campaign Act and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, which suppress voluntary support of candidates and parties. Primary elections should be returned to political party convention rather than being a taxpayer subsidized public event. Add the alternative “none of the above” to all ballots. In the event that “none of the above” receives a plurality of votes in any election, either the elective office for that term should remain unfilled and unfunded, or there shall be a new election in which none of the losing candidates shall be eligible. In order to grant voters a full range of choice in federal, state and local elections, we propose proportional voting systems with multi-member districts for legislative elections and instant runoff voting (IRV) for single winner elections. To avoid fraud and manipulation, electronic voting systems must use a voter verified paper ballot as the ballot of count, recount, audit and record.
http://www.lp.org/issues/platform_all.shtml#eleclaws
This is good news and I am glad Redpath supports PR and IRV. For too long the LPUS has supported these ideas on paper but not in action. Getting these two ideas enacted at the state or federal level should be done first before any attempts to elect Libertarians to Congress or the state houses is considered since the “First-Past-The-Post” system used now, inhibits the L.P.’s ability to elect candidates to offices higher than city council or Water District level.